Anyone else dealing with chronic early wakings?

So my little guy has been doing much, much better on the sleep front lately and I'm loathe to complain, but he's getting into a habit I'd like to break before it gets worse.

He typically sleeps from 8pm-7am with one waking per night. Lately, he has been doing the one night waking (around 3/4am) and then waking ready to roll at like 5 or 5:30. That wakeup time is 100% no bueno in this house. I cannot function waking up at that time every day, so I really don't want to start getting him up at that waking. I've tried nursing him back down with no luck.

Every time I ask for help on the sleep board, I get the same response: "Don't feed your child. Don't pick up your child. Don't comfort your child. Let your child cry until they get tired of crying. Put in ear plugs or talk a walk if you can't stand to hear it." It's like there's just no room for effing mercy over there. There have to be other options.

Has anyone else experienced this and had success extending that last bit of morning sleep? I know physiologically this is the hardest time of the night stretch for them to go back to sleep on their own and stay asleep. He has also been dealing with teeth coming in so I imagine that's a factor too.

He's been doing it about 10-14 days now, so we're definitely in a pattern, but I was hoping someone else had come through the other side of it and gone back to a normal wakeup time. Someone suggested this could be the 8-9-10 month sleep regression as well. I can deal with it if there is an end in sight, but I just don't want to reinforce waking up that early when I know it's not sustainable for me to be a half decent mom and be waking up before dawn every day.

Comments (24)

Have no advice but I’m in the same boat. She was such a good sleeper until 6 months.. I keep waiting for it to pass but it’s getting worse and worse. My baby goes to bed between 9-10 and used to wake up 8-9 (would wake up once or twice to eat but would immediately go back to sleep). Now she is waking up at 3am wide awake and won’t go back to sleep for an hour or two or at 5 am and won’t go back to sleep for an hour or two. It’s driving me crazy because I’m so tired! I’m following to see if anyone has some advice!

Have you tried to maybe try and delay the 3 or 4 am feeding? and then maybe he will be more full and sleep longer? my kiddos always woke early morning but i can usually feed them and they chat themselves back to sleep. Sorry im no help!! i feel your pain though. my 4 yr old is going through an early waking phase right now. she has been getting up at 6..ugh

Have no advice but I’m in the same boat. She was such a good sleeper until ...

Posted
09/10/2018

Have no advice but I’m in the same boat. She was such a good sleeper until 6 months.. I keep waiting for it to pass but it’s getting worse and worse. My baby goes to bed between 9-10 and used to wake up 8-9 (would wake up once or twice to eat but would immediately go back to sleep). Now she is waking up at 3am wide awake and won’t go back to sleep for an hour or two or at 5 am and won’t go back to sleep for an hour or two. It’s driving me crazy because I’m so tired! I’m following to see if anyone has some advice!

Mine was a crap sleeper from day one, so we did a lot of work to get him to where he is (hence why I'm loathe to complain but it's been MUCH worse and I know it could always be worse). But the last two months he's been killing the sleep game and his mood was so much better. Once he was getting real rest, his personality just burst through and he was a total joy. I felt bad for not working harder to get him sleeping better before the 6 month mark, honestly.

I'm not sure what your day schedule looks like, but the big trick for us was watching his wake times. I was trying to put him down too early and he would melt down and buck the nap and it would all bleed into bad night sleep etc. So we focused on watching him and seeing at what point he actually got tired and then going from there. We found that earlier bedtimes helped too.

The waking up wide awake at crazy hours thing sounds like it might be too much day sleep? If we let my little guy get much more than 3 hours of naps, he will wake up at totally insane times ready to party!

Have you tried to maybe try and delay the 3 or 4 am feeding? and then maybe h...

Posted
09/10/2018

Have you tried to maybe try and delay the 3 or 4 am feeding? and then maybe he will be more full and sleep longer? my kiddos always woke early morning but i can usually feed them and they chat themselves back to sleep. Sorry im no help!! i feel your pain though. my 4 yr old is going through an early waking phase right now. she has been getting up at 6..ugh

We usually give him 5-10 minutes after a night waking before we go in to give him a chance to resettle himself. If it's before 4am or so, DH (dear husband) will go in and try to resettle him first. It works maybe 2 times out of every 10. Otherwise he sees his dad and just screams like "HEY, WHERE IS SHE? YOU DON'T HAVE MILK!"

You probably won't like any of these, but:
-Try an earlier bedtime, say 7 or 7:30
-Nurse him at his might waking (as usual) and if he won't resettle, pop him into a baby carrier and walk/bounce/whatever until he passes out then transfer him back down.

-If all else fails, put him in bed with you. Keep it dark, don't talk or engage and let him fall asleep with you until preferred wake time.

You probably won't like any of these, but:
-Try an earlier bedtime, say 7...

Posted
09/10/2018

You probably won't like any of these, but:
-Try an earlier bedtime, say 7 or 7:30
-Nurse him at his might waking (as usual) and if he won't resettle, pop him into a baby carrier and walk/bounce/whatever until he passes out then transfer him back down.
-If all else fails, put him in bed with you. Keep it dark, don't talk or engage and let him fall asleep with you until preferred wake time.

I'm open to all suggestions, actually, but we've been down all these road already unfortunately.

We were doing a 7:00 bedtime for the longest and he was actually waking more often at night. We found that a 7:30/7:45 PD time was best for him. If he has bad naps, we put him down earlier than that.

The night waking isn't the hard part for putting him back down. He almost always goes out after nursing for that one. It's the 5am-ish one that's the monster.

We have put him in bed with us many times since his birth in moments of desperation. When he was younger, it worked, but it no longer does. Also, it's incredibly painful for me to bedshare with him because in order to keep him calm and not crawling all over (and off the edge) of the bed, I have to pop a boob in his mouth, which means I'm laying on my side with my hips stacked. I had a pretty traumatic labor and my pelvis and sacrum are still out of alignment and won't go back b/c of the nursing hormones, so laying like that literally makes my pubic bone feel like it's on FIRE when I get up and I hobble for half the day :-(

You probably won't like any of these, but:
-Try an earlier bedtime, say 7...

Posted
09/10/2018

You probably won't like any of these, but:
-Try an earlier bedtime, say 7 or 7:30
-Nurse him at his might waking (as usual) and if he won't resettle, pop him into a baby carrier and walk/bounce/whatever until he passes out then transfer him back down.
-If all else fails, put him in bed with you. Keep it dark, don't talk or engage and let him fall asleep with you until preferred wake time.

Tried the earlier bedtime but she would just wake up earlier but do the same thing in the middle of the night... and she already sleeps in bed with us. If we put her in the crib she only lasts like half hour 🤦🏻‍♀️I also try to get her to resettle without eating but she just rolls and rolls while groaning.

I have no advise.. but just stopped by to say, I am so jealous. I have to wake up around 5:45 because DH (dear husband) leaves home at 7am! And we are done with our morning routine by then.. and LO (little one) goes down for her first nap at 7am.

I am not functional at all in the mornings.. DH (dear husband) wakes LO (little one) up (she takes after her mommy.. but complains a lot less about the early wake up), wakes me up, makes breakfast for us.. while I pump and feed LO (little one) .

I'm open to all suggestions, actually, but we've been down all these ...

Posted
09/10/2018

I'm open to all suggestions, actually, but we've been down all these road already unfortunately.

We were doing a 7:00 bedtime for the longest and he was actually waking more often at night. We found that a 7:30/7:45 PD time was best for him. If he has bad naps, we put him down earlier than that.

The night waking isn't the hard part for putting him back down. He almost always goes out after nursing for that one. It's the 5am-ish one that's the monster.

We have put him in bed with us many times since his birth in moments of desperation. When he was younger, it worked, but it no longer does. Also, it's incredibly painful for me to bedshare with him because in order to keep him calm and not crawling all over (and off the edge) of the bed, I have to pop a boob in his mouth, which means I'm laying on my side with my hips stacked. I had a pretty traumatic labor and my pelvis and sacrum are still out of alignment and won't go back b/c of the nursing hormones, so laying like that literally makes my pubic bone feel like it's on FIRE when I get up and I hobble for half the day :-(

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